The invisible hand of short selling: Does short selling discipline earnings management?

We hypothesize that short selling has a disciplining role vis-a-vis firm managers that forces them to reduce earnings management. Using firm-level short-selling data for thirty-three countries collected over a sample period from 2002 to 2009, we document a significantly negative relationship between...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: MASSA, Massimo, ZHANG, Bohui, ZHANG, Hong
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/7054
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/8053/viewcontent/hhu147.pdf
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
Description
Summary:We hypothesize that short selling has a disciplining role vis-a-vis firm managers that forces them to reduce earnings management. Using firm-level short-selling data for thirty-three countries collected over a sample period from 2002 to 2009, we document a significantly negative relationship between the threat of short selling and earnings management. Tests based on instrumental variable and exogenous regulatory experiments offer evidence of a causal link between short selling and earnings management. Our findings suggest that short selling functions as an external governance mechanism to discipline managers.